2005 Award Reception

Lifetime Achievement Award presented by Michael Griffin, Administrator, National Aeronautics & Space Administration, to Louise L. Francesconi, vice president, Raytheon Company and president, Missile Systems Business, Raytheon in Tucson, Arizona, in recognition of her 30 years of outstanding service, her leadership and vision, and for her passionate support of other women and minorities in the field.

Outstanding Leadership Award presented by Conrad Lautenbacher, Administrator, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, to Deborah Ann Gardecki Kropp, president and CEO of MRI Technologies in Houston, Texas, for overcoming stereotypes and creating a successful business that provides opportunities to women and encourages risk-taking and personal growth.

Outstanding Achievement Award presented by Richard Russell, Associate Director for Technology, White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, to Mary P. Reagor, technical fellow for mathematical algorithms at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company in Fort Worth, Texas, for her pioneering work in the development of fuzzy logic applications resulting in extremely versatile, widely-applicable data-mining and modeling tools for complex multivariate systems.

International Achievement Award presented by Eva Weigold, Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for Democracy & Global Affairs, U.S. Department of State, to Susmita Mohanty, founder and managing director of Moonfront, LLC, in San Francisco, California, for her commitment to global cooperation in space and her entrepreneurial approach to making it happen.

Aerospace Educator Award presented by Kathie Olsen, Deputy Director & Chief Operations Officer, National Science Foundation, to Bettyann Holtzmann Kevles, a lecturer at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, for inspiring the next generation through her teachings, lectures and writings and for creatively introducing space to those in other disciplines including history, art and public relations.

Aerospace Awareness Award presented by Kathie Olsen, Deputy Director & Chief Operations Officer, National Science Foundation, to Edna DeVore, director of education and public outreach and deputy CEO at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, for her work in bringing teachers together and astronomers together to create classroom lessons based on real science and for sharing the excitement and challenges of airborne astronomy and space science with thousands of students.